Kristina Olson is a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, where she serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Human Diversity Lab. She earned her B.A. summa cum laude in Psychology and African and African American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis in 2003, an A.M. in Social Psychology from Harvard University in 2005, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University in 2008. Her primary research interests include gender development and well-being in sex and gender diverse children, the development of prejudice, perceptions of inequality in childhood, and social categorization. Olson directs the TransYouth Project, a longitudinal study examining gender development in transgender children.

Prior to joining Princeton in 2020, Olson held faculty positions at Yale University as Assistant Professor of Psychology from 2008 to 2013 and at the University of Washington, where she advanced from Assistant Professor (2013-2015) to Associate Professor (2015-2019), Professor (2019-2020), and Earl R. Carlson Endowed Professor (2019-2020). She maintains affiliate faculty appointments in Cognitive Science at Princeton University and Psychology at the University of Washington. Olson has received prestigious awards, including the 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2018 National Science Foundation Alan T. Waterman Award, the 2016 Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformational Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science, the 2019 Early Career Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the 2025 Princeton University Graduate Mentoring Award. Her influential publications include "Children’s Gender Five Years After Their Initial Childhood Social Transitions" (Pediatrics, 2022, with Durwood, L., Horton, R., Gallagher, N.M., & Devor, A.H.), "Similarity in transgender and cisgender children’s gender development" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, with Gülgöz, S., et al.), "Mental health and self-worth in socially transitioned transgender youth" (Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2017, with Durwood, L., & McLaughlin, K.A.), and "Gender Identity 5 Years After Social Transition" (Pediatrics, 2022). With over 13,995 citations on Google Scholar, her research has significantly advanced understanding of social cognitive development, particularly in transgender and gender diverse youth.

Professional Email: krolson@princeton.edu